


Giftfic 5

by Dreadmartha



Category: Intermission - Fandom, Problem Sleuth - Fandom
Genre: Get your tissues ready, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 18:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadmartha/pseuds/Dreadmartha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DD/PI, Stockholm Syndrome. Need I say more?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giftfic 5

Words slide up close, press in against you arms, shoulder, neck, cheek. They crawl into your ear, penetrate your eardrum and send waves of alternating hot and cold across your head.

 

“Pencil necked idiot…”

 

“He should be up…”

 

“He gets lost in his head.”

 

You shiver, a voice like two hands moving up the insides of your legs, pushing in against the place hands don’t ever go. It forms a collar of cold fingers around your neck.

 

It’s too tight. You can’t breathe.

 

A sound is made, coming from somewhere so close you would even guess that you made it.

 

The room is silent. There is light on the other side of your eyelids. Light and people.

 

“What, is he awake?”

The room is silent and still for a moment, then a hand comes fast across your face, interrupting your head’s throbbing with cold stab of new pain. Nerves light up all across your face, blazing together brilliantly before going dead again. Something is wrong with your mouth.

You can’t move it.

A trail of something cool and wet travels from the corner of your mouth down to your chin, then in along the underside of your jaw.

Drool or blood. Please don’t let it be drool.

Another slap reminds you that you’re not alone.

Your eyelids creak open after the impact, light blinds you and another sound, now more than likely from you, escapes. Closing your eyes doesn’t do much to stop the ache caused by the light. You groan, this time fully conscious of the noise, and smell smoke.

“Jesus Christ what the hell did you use? You gave him fucking brain damage, Droog.”

Your stomach flipflops as you remember cloth over your mouth, your nose, a chokingly sweet smell, and the low grind of leather gloves gripping your face.

“You would have cracked his head open.”

You think your head is cracked, there’s a sharp overtone to the throbbing.

“Hey, numbnuts,” something smooth and metallic pushes one of your eyelids up. You whimper as light, pain and a burly image that looks a little like Spades Slick blaze across the optical nerve and hit your brain. “Wake up already.”

——

Your name is Pickle Inspector and you’ve drooled on yourself.

So that adds insult to searing pain that boils purple down the side of your face.

Up to now you thought you were very brave, that you were a stand-up guy, a good teammate, the underdog who couldn’t be broken.

Spade Slick didn’t seem to agree. He must’ve thought you were just annoying little man who wouldn’t tell him what he wanted. Then he offered that opinion with a metal hand and what felt like a lot of shadow magic.

You wish you could ask the man who designed that arm why he put claws at the ends of the fingers.

Slick just left, cursing and spitting, his hand still burning purple. He’s left you in the little windowless room where you awoke from your stupor. There’s one door, one uncovered light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and you tied to this chair. Tied and handcuffed, because they know if you ever get a good look at the knots that connect your arms to the back of the chair, you’ll go about untying them in your head, until you get a chance of undo them in real life.

Handcuffs are harder to imaginarily get out of.

You wish you were back at home, nice and safe in bed, curled up someplace where nobody, not even NB could find you.

Somewhere you’d be warm and safe and not the incarnation of ‘insult to injury.’

Maybe you’d take this all better if you hadn’t drooled on yourself, or if you could at least wipe it off. You can’t be sure the gag you were wearing when you woke up was responsible for the breach of your already shaky dignity, but it left your jaws numb, and that’s what you’ve decided was the catalyst for your accidental slobbering.

Your face burns and then cools awfully, making you forget that tiny indignity in favor of remembering how alone you are. It’s already occurred to you that Ace and Sleuth must be looking for you, but you were the only member of Team Sleuth with any promising leads on the location of the Crew’s hideout. And you were abducted from your office, which means they’ve probably taken your files as well.

There weren’t many, you’re a terrible organizer.

The door opens and you’re jarred out of your thoughts by a figure you think you should recognize. Six feet tall, medium build, board shoulders. It’s the same description you’d give Diamonds Droog, but you’ve never seen him without his coat, gloves, hat, gun, suit jacket, cigarette and cigarette holder. You never imagined his sleeves could be rolled up, or that his stoic expression could be changed to one of longsuffering disinterest.

The door snaps shut behind him, he comes up to you and grabs your jaw, turning your head so he can see what Slick’s robot hand has done. His finger slips, or, much more likely, he pokes the wound and you yelp.

You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t do that. You’d even managed to just hiss when Slick hit you.

Far above you Droog makes a noise like a sigh as he lets go of your jaw. Without the gloves you can feel how warm his hands are and it makes you feel sicker. There’s something ticking away in his chest, not a heart, but something that serves the same purpose. A pacemaker, perhaps, installed at birth to try and keep a heartless body alive.

Your throat burns as you breathe in shakily and try to look up at him defiantly.

“You have strange taste in women, Inspector.”

And just like that you’re no longer very brave, a stand-up guy, a good teammate, or the underdog who couldn’t be broken.

You squirm around, twitching and shaking to the point that you can hear your feet tapping against the cement floor and the scraping of the chair legs as your weight shifts around.

“I, you, you’ve, l-l-let her go, let her go, Droog,” and you fall into repeating that, as if it were a mantra and you were a guru. But what guru would ever let this happen to someone he loved?

Droog flicks your wound, sending a wave of pain bouncing up and down your spine. You shut up, whimpering and twitching again. You close your eyes and try to think that none of this is happening but you can’t just leave NB like that. Your brain rebels, cooking up everything that they could do to her, and you open your eyes as tears start to sting them.

He’s still right there.

Air burns your throat as you try to speak.

“W-what-whatever you w-wa-want.”

And the questions start. You answer as best you can, but you’re clumsy and too slow for him. Even if you were brave enough to lie you couldn’t, his questions are all completely unrelated. He asks about the rest of Team Sleuth, but also your previous cases, people you’ve met maybe twice in your whole life. He wants to know names, dates, family members, business deals, where they eat, where they sleep, all the tiny person details Sleuth was so good at using against someone, all the little things you made yourself remember, though you personally couldn’t fathom why someone would prefer to eat in public so much or why a man would be surrounded by women half his age who knew his name, when he knew none of theirs.

Finally your voice is dried up, your head is pounding and the scratch down your face is cold but numb. You wheeze quietly, trying to keep your eyes open to watch him and maybe be able to brace yourself if he decides simple interrogation has gotten boring and he’d rather just beat the tar out of you.

He comes up to you and you flinch. But he doesn’t punch you, instead he just puts a hand on your forehead and tilts your head back. Making you look him in the face.

“Tell me everything you know about Michael O’Hare.”

“I-I already told you, told you,” but you’re already telling him again. You fail to see the point of asking a question a second time, but the information is familiar and comes easier than a rebuttal. Somewhere in the details of O’Hare’s life you get lost and just spew out whatever else he asks for. Asking everything again, your brain tries to form the pattern he must be operating on but there’s none to be found. He doesn’t even ask in the same order as before.

The sides of your head ache, you can’t talk above a whisper now and all you can focus on is NB.

Oh god you’ve got to do something.

“Where, where is, is she? Droog p-please, just, just tell me where,”

He pokes the gashes on your face again, making you sputter and hiss.

“What happened to O’Hare’s wife?”

“H-His, his wife?” He doesn’t reply and you swallow, the muscles at the back of your throat pulling on a dry tongue. Michael O’Hare’s wife. “She—she d-d-d—” You can’t get it out. Oh god. “She—she—she,” You squeeze your eyes shut and try to say it. “De-de—she d-d-d,” You can feel him about to touch your face again and you flinch away. “Gone. She’s gone.”

He grabs you jaw again, turns you up towards him. You open your eyes because you don’t want him to open them for you. His face hasn’t change at all, every wrinkle exactly where it was before. You can’t look him in the eye.

“She’s dead, Inspector.”

You close your eyes and nod into his hand. He lets go and you nod down towards your chest, and at some point you start shaking your head.

“Please, please, anything else, please anything, anything else.”

“You’ll be over your stutter in no time.”

He’s laughing at you, with nothing different in his tone and, you know without looking, no change in his face he’s laughing at you. Even to the one man in Midnight City who can’t laugh, you’re a joke.

He moves away, you look up to see him headed for the door.

“Droog w-w-wait—”

The door snaps shut behind him.

——

Sleep comes in seconds here and there. Your eyes only shut long enough for your head to lull from side to side, which jars you awake again. You try sitting up and putting your head back, but your terrified you’ll accidently swallow your tongue. And then you’re no good to them, and NB will be

They’ll

They

NB

You’re suddenly leaning forward, and you lean forward more. Maybe you can topple the chair over onto you, lie on the floor and sleep that way. But your shoulders strain, suddenly they’re full of pins. You sit back again. You try to knocking the chair over on its side, but it’s heavy and you can barely move. You put your head to one side

Close your eyes

And

NB oh god what’ve you gotten her into. Of all the people to fall for, she had to stoop so low and pick you. And now you’ve gotten her mixed up with the Midnight Crew and Diamonds Droog. Oh god you’ve got to help her they’re going to

To hurt her

They’re going to

To make her

Go away

You’ve got to help her. You’ve got to do what they want, whatever it is you’ll do it. If you do everything they say, they’ll let her go. That’s how this works.

It’s got to work.

It’s got

Got to

Sleep, you’ve got to sleep. Please, please, just go to sleep and wake up back at home.

You start talking, begging the walls, the door, the bulb to let you sleep. They aren’t sympathetic.

If you could sleep you’d tell them everything. Whatever they wanted, just to make sure she was safe.

Time gets away from you. It could be minutes before Slick comes back it, it could be days. He’s yelling, but you think he must have been talking before that. You can’t remember. Or keep your eyes open.

He hits you again, this time sinking his left hand into your stomach. That wakes you up enough to listen. You’re not talking, that’s why he’s mad.

“Ssssorry,”

Light pours in through the door and you see Droog’s big silhouette, then the rest of him, come up behind Slick and take him by the shoulder. You’re leaned forward again and your eyes close. Slick’s yelling stops.

Your head is pushes back and something cold and smooth presses between your lips. Water slides over your teeth and you start. Your hands twitch as they try to reach up and take the glass being held to your lips. But rope and metal insure that your hands stay right where they are.

It dribbles down on your chin and you hear yourself slurp but you can’t be bothered by something like etiquette now. You’ve never been this thirsty. But the glass is pulled away far too soon. You gasp, having forgotten that you need air.

You squint, trying to see where the glass went, but already your head is throbbing. You catch a glimpse of Droog’s shadow before everything gets too heavy and you fall out of the room into blackness.

——

What’s going on is probably going to be the last thing that ever happens to you.

The thought hits you as you come out of a drugged slumber.

And at this point you think it’s for the best. You couldn’t face NB again, you couldn’t face Ace and Sleuth again. You doubt they would even talk to you after spilling your guts like that. They shouldn’t. You had no idea they would go this far, Slick is not the kind of leader who take hostages.

The sooner you understand that the better, it will probably save NB’s life. Despite what he likes to think about himself, Spades Slick did not build this city. Honest men like Sleuth and Ace did, it was the likes of Slick that murdered and maimed until the honest men relinquished their rights. He’ll do anything to get what he wants, no matter who he ends up using or crushing in the process.

If you make this easy for him, if you just do what they want, you’ll save your loved ones from that much chaos.

You understand that perfectly well.

What you don’t understand is why they don’t just tell you what they want. They picked you out of the rest of Team Sleuth because they knew you’d break the easiest, and you’ve proved them right. Even if having NB somewhere is only a threat, you’ll do what they tell you. Stubbornness will only make your situation worse. You’re glad you’ve never been a stubborn man. But you fail to see the point in drugging you.

Droog interrupts your thoughts. He comes in, much as you think he was before. You don’t remember what happened so well.

He’s calmer than you’ve ever seen him, closing the door behind him carefully. This is a man who’s known for keeping face even when he’s gunning down gangs three times the size of the Crew. You’ve only ever dealt with him in passing, taking cases that are nothing more than the few loose ends of Crew deals.

But you know enough to know that the calm he displays now is far different from whatever he turns to the world outside this room. This is his world, his natural habitat.

Then you realize he’s waiting for you to talk.

“Hello,” it’s not much, but you’re betting that politeness will work on him the exact opposite way it works on Slick. That is to say, positively.

“Hello, Inspector.” He keeps watching you, saying nothing else. You squirm, trying to navigate a numb and stiff body in such a way that you give the impression of openness. It’s hard, now that the left side of your face is entirely numb. You can’t even open your eye. And Droog gives no hint as to whether or not you’ve succeeded when you finally go still again.

He just watches you.

“What—what is it that, that you want?”

“Information.”

You nod and try to signal for him to keep going. But even if you had full control of your body you don’t think you could figure out that kind of idiosyncrasy.

“You know what’s at stake, of course.” Perhaps he meant to go on, perhaps he took your attempt at a hint. Either way, you nod.

“What—whatever you w-want. Ah-anything.”

“She’ll be relieved to hear that.”

You tell yourself that he’s just trying to scare you, that the Crew wouldn’t need to kidnap you and NB. But you can’t chance being wrong. You don’t even want to think about guessing and being wrong. An ounce of precaution, after all.

He starts with more questions. You answer as readily as you can, but that’s still not fast enough for him. He doesn’t hit you or threaten NB, but his glare and the clarity with which you understand how annoying he finds you is as good as another fist in the gut. You don’t want to disappoint anyone, not even Diamonds Droog.

You answer his questions for what feels like hours until he nods to himself, mulling over the latest scrap of information you’ve supplied, and turns back to the door. None of his usual formality, he’s just going to leave.

You have no idea what to do. Letting him leave will mean you’re polite and cooperative and that’s good. That makes you look good. But the last thing you care about right now is your own reputation.

“Droog—” he looks back at you as if this were a play and that were his cue.

You’re not much of an actor.

“Ha-how, how is she?”

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“Say it until you stop stuttering.”

Your chest tightens up and you want to flinch back but you can barely move your face, let alone the rest of you. Somehow you squirm, humming and looking away. Maybe he’ll go away.

He doesn’t. You’ve got his full attention.

“How—how—how,” you stop and swallow drily. “How i-is sh-eh,” your head swims and you look down to keep from fainting. Blood rushes down to your brain. “H-h-h-h,” you whimper and close your eyes.

“Keep going.”

You chew your lip and try to take some comfort in the certainty that if you bite yourself you will feel pain. But your lip is numb.

“How. Is. Sh-sh-she. How i—sss. How is she-e.”

It’s such a tiny slip that you’re not even sure he heard it.

“Inspector.”

“How—is she. How-how is she. How ah,” your chest throbs and you feel sweat rolling down to the top of your head. “How is she?”

“Not well. Her nerves have taken a beating.”

Your guts twist as he leaves.

——

One arm is untied so you can eat. The food is bad and you’re glad to have it. You don’t see the point in staying tied up, you would never be able to fight any of them. You can only assume that they don’t want you tinkering with the lock on the door.

Your stomach turns, trying to understand food again. It makes you feel full and sick. You put your head to the left because the numbness has traveled down from the scratch to the muscles on that side of your neck and wait for the drugs you’re sure you’ve been slipped to kick in.

They work mercifully fast.

——

You’ve been fed three times and Droog refuses to touch you.

The pattern to everything so far is simple; every visit involves more questions, every four visits you’re fed, the same thing (stale bread). On the fifth visit you’re fully untied, marched around a corner and shoved into a tiny bathroom. No cabinets the go through, nothing useful to slip into your pocket. You doubt you’d even use anything you found that would help you escape. There’s nowhere you could go after you got out, and they’d still have NB as collateral.

You’ve gone through this three times, but Droog hasn’t touch your once since he held your head back so you could drink.

Not

Not that you want him to, it’s just really cold in here and his hands are warm.

Warmer than anyone you know’s. It’s strange, it doesn’t add up that it should be Diamonds Droog that has something as typically symbolic of good as warm hands. You would have thought they were icy, like the rest of him.

But the habits of a man’s circulation care nothing for symbolism.

You miss human contact. Even Slick’s violence was better than the absolute nothing that Droog offers. You haven’t seen Slick since he punched you. You doubt you’ll see him again.

It struck you as odd that he was there, particularly under Droog’s supervision as you assume he was. You’ve thought about it, because there’s so little else to think about. You imagine that Droog was trying to teach him the finer points of interrogation, a skill he will need if he wants to continue as a kingpin should something happen to Droog.

That raises the question, is Droog planning on getting out of the business. It wouldn’t necessarily surprise you. Just looking at him you can tell that mobsterhood is old hat for him. That he has at least ten years on the others and that he has been stockpiling his cut of the Crew’s earning. That last part, though, you can’t really tell from looking at him. That part comes from the small profile you quietly kept on him, sort of as a road map for your cases. Just to be safe, when things in certain cases looked like they were getting themselves tied up with the Crew, you would consult the profiles you had on each of its members, to see how important or dangerous things threatened to get.

Droog’s profile always proved the most useful because he is a man so concerned with his business. Which you think comes from being the eldest of the four, and having been of age when the Depression hit. As a young man trying to make his way in that situation, you’re not surprised he became a ruthless businessman. And, armed with that knowledge, you can predict that he is something of a miser. Only enough so that he’s well prepared when it comes to cash, though.

He does know how to enjoy himself, in terms of spending. Hence the quality suits, cigarettes, even his gun is more expensive than anything the others use. A man of means and fine tastes.

It’s a very healthy way for a man to be, now that you think about it.

——

When he visits again you find yourself distracted by how natural he is in here. He blends right in, the same way Sleuth fits right in when he’s found a streetlight to smoke under, or NB when she curls up in your chair with a good book.

You get goosebumps just seeing him. As if you were watching a lion out in safari. There’s nothing between you and all that danger but the flimsy agreement that he won’t hurt you as long as you do what you’re told.

The adrenaline rush that thought gives you only makes you notice how beautifully he fits in here more.

You find yourself smiling as he questions you.

——

He notices how happy you are to see him, though he does not comment. Well, he does in his own way. It’s as seamless as the rest of your interaction, he’ll drop a threat here or there whenever your stutter gets too bad.

You shiver and smile a little wider, more sheepishly, because you know that really, what he’s trying to do is help you through your stutter. And giving you that kind of a motive is a great idea. Frankly it’s quite kind and flattering that he would take such an interest. You didn’t expect such behavior from the most dangerous man in Midnight City’s history.

Your reaction spurs him on, giving him what he wants.

He’s taken to teasing you, which isn’t so kind but is still flattering. By now he knows that you sorely miss being touched, and he’s started putting his hands just inches from you. If he’s pacing around or behind you he won’t miss an opportunity grip the back or side of the chair, his fingers a hair’s breath away from you shoulder or elbow or neck.

You don’t ask him to stop, or to touch you, but you’re not above leaning in for a millisecond or two of warmth before he inevitably moves his hand. The fact that he persists in doing it is the only hint you get that he’s teasing you and that it is all not just a happy mistake.

He gives no other clue, until a fifth visit when you are untied and marched down the hall, rather than around the corner, and into another small tied room, this one is a fully functional bathroom, with a tub fixed for showers.

You’re not overjoyed about that until you peel off your clothes and start the water. Only then do you realize how long it’s been since you showered. There’s a hard brick of yellow soap, which smells like absolutely nothing, that you rub against your stiff, still shaky muscles. The water is cold, but you’re glad for that because it keeps you awake. Drugged sleep has taken a toll on you.

You finish and try to get yourself to air dry before the cold is too much and you pull your clothes back on. You’re more aware of how poorly they fit you now. Perhaps you can ask Droog the name of a good tailor.

He’s waiting for you, and as usual he walks you back to your room, keeping you in front of him the whole time. It’s mostly a show to the others. You’d go back with or without him to chaperon you.

He opens the door and you both step inside, as usual. But now you see that the chair is completely free of the ropes that are usually left hanging over it, ready to be retired upon your return.

In the moment you take to ponder this, Droog goes over and sits down. This confuses you further, until he locks eyes with you and sits back.

“Come here, Inspector.”

And without a second thought, you’re climbing into his lap.

His arms are around you faster than you expected, and you jump a little as he starts pulling your clothes off again. Droog is not clumsy, by any means, but you didn’t suspect that he would be this rough. He bites where you know he means to kiss, pulls your hair when you know he only meant to run his fingers through it, laps up blood instead of leaning up and whispering how much he loves you into your ear. You bare his eagerness, though you can’t imagine it away. You hold on as best you can, thrust back against him, squeeze your teeth together to keep the instinctive pleading that he stop from escaping. It hurts, yes, but you couldn’t bare the pain that rejecting him, even accidentally, would bring him.

When he finishes you’re able to force out a groan, trying to mimic a climax.

Whether he’s fooled is irrelevant, because now there are other things for you to take care off.

“Put your clothes back on.”

You do, quickly so that you don’t get lost in contemplating your bruises. He’s waiting at the door, watching you as attentively as ever. You shiver a little, as he opens the door and holds it open for you. You’re led outside, which is quite a surprise. It’s dark, and cold, but you’re soon ushered into the back of one of the Crew’s big black cruisers.

The leather smells great, despite the fact that there are a few dark stains you can’t quite identify in this poor light. Droog drives and smokes, which you don’t mind because he smokes high-end cigarettes that smell more like actual tobacco than nicotine and ash. You wish he wouldn’t smoke, only out of principle. It is the worse thing a person can do to their body, outside of self-mutilation.

The drive is smooth and you watch out the window as the dark city falls away and you enter a silent, black forest. Your imagination does double backflips, coming up with everything on just the other side of those trees. You’re almost giddy with the idea of werewolves and all manner of other monsters leering out at you.

There’s a slow bend in the road and shortly after that Droog turns the car off the pavement entirely. He stops the engine, flicks off the lights and gets out. You can only see his vague outside when he leaves the car, but the door next to you opens and as you step out your eyes start to adjust.

Somehow the light was different in the car.

As was the feeling.

You stay close to Droog, wanting to reach other a hold the end of his sleeve or feel the crook of his arm. By you know better, making him uncomfortable like that would ruin whatever it is he’s brought you out here for.

You walk in silence until you’re very far from the car. Suddenly he stops and you hear him rustling in his coat for something.

“Get on your knees, Inspector.”

You do, looking around quickly just to be sure no wolves are around ready to rip you both apart. You get down, and finally, in the moonlight of this little clearing you can see Droog’s face again. There a secondary glint off his revolver that adds to the effect. The smile that stretches across your face doesn’t change as he aims for the spot between your eyes and fires.


End file.
